Comparing School Financial and Academic Performance Part 1

This is a very important subject to explore and thoroughly understand. As a County Commissioner here in Fayette County TN, I feel that taxpayer monies must be spent wisely and provide the best return on investment (ROI) for taxpayers. Our first obligation is Public Safety, Law Enforcement, Fire Fighting, and EMS. But we have other state required obligations such as Public Works (roads) and Public Schools.

Recently, after going through the budget cycle for fiscal year 22-23, it became obvious that spending in the Public School system budget was arduous to collate and filled with categories of  funding classified as "Other" and/or "Miscellaneous." This makes it virtually impossible to figure out how and where money is actually being spent. When pressed, school officials give general descriptions and obfuscation leaving commission members confused and distrustful.

Further, teachers have been told they will not get raises because the County Commission will not allow budgeting beyond state required maintenance of effort(MOE). This fiscal year the state required MOE for Fayette County Public Schools will be nearly 11 million dollars of taxpayer funds.

In addition, School system academics, in general and 3rd Grade reading in particular, fall well behind state standards and near the bottom of the state averages. Consequently, I felt compelled to see if there was a way to quantify spending via state disclosures to help understand the ROI for taxpayers.

I found the state provides very good information which is concisely compiled in spreadsheet form. This facilitates analysis of FPCS spending for the previous fiscal year, in this case 21-22, and comparison of that spending against other districts. Here is the link to download that data: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/documents/asr/ASR_2021_22_ExcelFiles.zip

The goal here was to look at several school districts in comparison to FCPS to see how spending in this county measures up to other counties with similar enrollment, funding, and funding model. The analysis includes the following counties; Fayette, Hardeman, Henry and Obion.

"Part 1" will cover the findings for the study and show some charts denoting similarities in the counties included in the analysis.

"Part 2" will look at "Teacher Pay" of the counties to understand what differences exist in pay for teachers, principals and superintendents.

"Parts 3" of the analysis will cover "Instruction" versus "Support Services" in comparison to the other counties and "Part 4" will compare "Instruction" versus "Support Services" as percentages along side the currently published 3rd Grade ELA scores.

The "Conclusion" will summarize the series and provide a key spreadsheet to exemplify the information presented.

Findings of the analysis are that Fayette County:

  - has the highest "Per Pupil Expenditures" of the counties
  - has the second highest "Local" funding of the counties
  - has the lowest paid teachers in every category
  - has the lowest paid principals
  - has the second highest paid superintendent
  - spends much less on "Instruction" than other counties
  - spends far more on "Support Services" than other counties
  - has the lowest 3rd Grade ELA scores of the counties

There are 3 charts below. These were included to create a level-set for the analysis.  First is "PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES" (PPE), which includes enrollment as of October 1 and the total amount of funds expended per pupil. Note that Fayette County has the highest PPE of all of the counties in the analysis. This is with an enrollment that is right in the middle, only 24 more than Henry County which has the lowest PPE. In "Part 2" it will become clear that while Henry County has the lowest PPE, it also has some of the highest paid teachers.

The second chart is "REVENUE - FUNDING PERCENTAGES" which shows the level of state, local and federal funding. The variance in state funding can be accounted for by differences in enrollment. It is noteworthy that Fayette County local funding is the second highest at 27.4%. This includes the MOE required funding by the County Commission according to state law. It also dispels the notion that the county is not investing in the schools. Finally, the federal funding is higher in Fayette County but only by a few percent.

The last chart is the 3rd Grade ELA scores from the current State published list. In this chart it is obvious that Fayette County is behind other counties. In "Part 4" I will show a relationship between lower scores and "Support Services" spending.

I hope this series will be enlightening and informative for the taxpayers of Fayette County.